Ukraine

Ukraine’s leader previously said advisers were sent to Qatar, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia to help thwart Iranian drone attacks.

Ukraine wants money and technology as payback after sending specialists to the Middle East to help down Iranian drones during the ongoing Israel-United States war with Iran.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters on Sunday that three teams were sent to the region to undertake expert assessments and demonstrate how drone defences work as countries in the Middle East continue to be targeted by Iran over hosting US military bases.

“This is not about being involved in operations. We are not at war with Iran,” Zelenskyy said.

Earlier this week, Ukraine’s leader announced military teams were sent to Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and a US military base in Jordan.

But he explained that more long-term drone deals could be negotiated with Gulf countries, and what Kyiv gets in return for its assistance still needs to be established.

“For us today, both the technology and the funding are important,” Zelenskyy said.

Throughout the four-year Russia-Ukraine war, Moscow has widely used Iranian Shahed-136 “suicide” drones, giving Kyiv expertise in knowing how to down the unmanned aerial vehicles through cheap drone interceptors, electronic jamming tools, and anti-aircraft weaponry.

However, US President Donald Trump has said he does not need Ukraine’s help in taking down Iranian drones attacking American targets.

‘Rules must be tightened’

Zelenskyy said he doesn’t know why Washington hasn’t signed a drone agreement with Kyiv, which it has pushed for months.

“I wanted to sign a deal worth about $35bn–50bn,” he said.

Still, as the Russia-Ukraine conflict continues with no end in sight, Zelenskyy raised concerns that the ongoing war in the Middle East will impact Kyiv’s supplies of air defence missiles.

“We would very much not like the United States to step away from the issue of Ukraine because of the Middle East,” he told reporters.

But as interest has grown for Ukrainian drone interceptors in light of the war, Zelenskyy said Kyiv’s rules to buy the drones must be tightened, with foreign countries and firms being unable to bypass the government and talk directly to manufacturers.

“Unfortunately, representatives of certain governments or companies want to bypass the Ukrainian state to purchase specific equipment,” Zelensky told reporters.

“Even in some free countries, we do not initially receive contracts from the private sector. A contract comes to me through the political channel. Only then does the private sector start negotiating with us.”

EU maintains pressure after slamming US for lifting sanctions on Russian oil exports as Middle East war bites.

The European Union has voted to renew sanctions against individuals and entities supporting Russia’s war on Ukraine, as Russian forces continued to target Ukrainian energy infrastructure, killing six people in the Zaporizhia and Kyiv regions.

The EU Council announced that the bloc’s 27 member states had agreed on Saturday to extend sanctions targeting some 2,600 individuals and entities with measures like travel restrictions and asset freezes until September 15, breaking an earlier deadlock caused by Hungary and Slovakia’s opposition to the move.

The extension of sanctions came one day after EU Council chief Antonio Costa slammed the United States for lifting sanctions on Russian oil exports, saying on X that weakening restrictions increased “Russian resources to wage the war of aggression against Ukraine”, with a knock-on impact on European security.

The measure was announced as Russia hammered Ukraine with missiles and drones on Saturday, killing five people and injuring 15 in the Kyiv region surrounding the capital, according to regional military administrator Mykola Kalashnyk.

The city of Zaporizhzhia was also hit by Russian-guided bombs, killing one person and injuring three, said the governor of the southeastern region, Ivan Fedorov. Photos posted online showed parts of buildings reduced to rubble.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia’s main target was energy infrastructure outside the capital Kyiv, but that the Sumy, Kharkiv, Dnipro and Mykolaiv regions were also targeted in an attack that included about 430 drones and 68 missiles, most of which were downed by air defences.

Russia’s winter attacks on Ukraine have left swaths of major cities without power or heating, as Moscow’s troops continue their offensive amid demands Kyiv cede more territory in the east. Ukraine’s Energy Ministry said on Saturday that consumers in six regions were without electricity.

Ukraine’s forces have targeted Russian strategic infrastructure such as oil refineries, depots and terminals in long-range strikes. On Saturday, Ukraine’s military said that it had struck the Afipsky oil refinery and Port Kavkaz in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region.

Putin ‘exploiting’ Middle East distraction

Saturday’s fighting came as the Iran conflict has distracted international attention from a US-backed peace push in the four-year war, which Kyiv says Moscow has no interest in ending.

Belgium’s Prime Minister Bart De Wever called on Saturday for the EU to be mandated by its member states to negotiate with Russia as it became apparent amid spiking oil prices caused by the Iran war that the US was easing pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Since we are not capable of threatening Putin by sending weapons to Ukraine, and we cannot choke him economically without the support of the United States, there is only one method left: making a deal,” he told the Belgian newspaper L’Echo.

EU chief diplomat Kaja Kallas has said in the past that the bloc must first reach an agreement on what is expected from Russia before directly approaching Putin, formulating its own “maximalist demands”.

However, the bloc’s inability to reach a common position was highlighted during the EU Council’s recent deliberations on extending sanctions.

Hungary and Slovakia, which have been sparring with Ukraine over blocked Russian oil flows through the Druzhba pipeline, had earlier opposed the extension of the restrictions, reportedly calling for some Russian oligarchs to be removed from the list of offenders.

Reacting earlier this week to soaring oil prices caused by the war in Iran, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban urged the EU to suspend sanctions on Russian energy.

Posting on X, Zelenskyy said, “Russia will try to exploit the war in the Middle East to cause even greater destruction here in Europe, in Ukraine.”

WASHINGTON — Russia is emerging as one of the few early economic beneficiaries of the war with Iran, as disruptions to energy infrastructure drive up demand for Russian exports and the world casts its gaze to the Middle East and away from Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

The U.S. and its European counterparts slapped severe sanctions on Russia in March 2022, barely a month into Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The effect was a stranglehold on Russia’s exports, depriving Putin’s war effort of at least $500 billion, experts say. But over the last week, as President Trump’s war in the Middle East choked energy markets worldwide, the White House began easing its restrictions on Moscow.

“It is traitorous conduct for you to help Russia,” California Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) said on X, demanding the Trump administration reverse course. “Russia is giving intelligence info to Iran that helps Iran target American forces.”

Crude droplets rained over Tehran after Israeli airstrikes decimated oil depots, draping the Iranian capital in a dense smog. Iranian counterattacks have also targeted refineries and oil fields in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Crude oil prices have surged, and traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has all but ceased, sending energy importers in search of alternate sources.

Those spikes are giving Russia, one of the world’s largest oil and gas exporters, a rare advantage. After spending a decade as the world’s most sanctioned nation over his aggression in Ukraine, Putin is finally starting to regain some leverage in global markets.

“In the current economic situation, if we refocus now on those markets that need increased supplies, we can gain a foothold there,” Putin said at a meeting at the Kremlin on Monday, according to Russian state media. “It’s important for Russian energy companies to take advantage of the current situation.”

On March 4, the Treasury Department issued a temporary 30-day waiver allowing Indian refiners to purchase Russian oil. The appeal by the Trump administration was described as a way to ease demand for Mideast oil, but was criticized as a reversal of sanctions placed against Putin meant to deny him the capital needed to fund his occupation of eastern Ukraine.

Now, Moscow is poised to press that advantage further, after Trump said Monday he will further lift sanctions on oil-producing countries to ease the trade friction and reintroduce additional oil and gas supplies. The only countries with U.S. oil sanctions are Russia, Iran and Venezuela.

“So, we have sanctions on some countries. We’re going to take those sanctions off until this straightens out,” Trump said at a news conference at his golf club in Doral, Fla. “Then, who knows, maybe we won’t have to put them on — they’ll be so much peace.”

The surprise concession to Moscow comes as reports suggest Russia is assisting Iran in targeting U.S. personnel.

Trump’s announcement followed an unscheduled hourlong call with Putin about the situation in the Middle East.

The war has also set the stage for Russia to make gains in Ukraine, as hostilities draw the global spotlight away from Kyiv and its struggle to hold back the bigger Russian army. U.S.-brokered talks between the two adversaries have been sidelined as Washington shifts focus to its war in Iran.

“At the moment, the partners’ priority and all attention are focused on the situation around Iran,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on X. “We see that the Russians are now trying to manipulate the situation in the Middle East and the Gulf region to the benefit of their aggression.”

Putin is unlikely to intervene militarily on Iran’s behalf, according to Robert English, an international foreign policy expert at USC. Instead, Putin is expected to play his position carefully, reap the economic rewards, and keep focused firmly on Ukraine at a time when key air defense systems are diverted from Ukraine to the Persian Gulf.

“Russia is winning the Iran-U.S.-Israel war, at least so far. Oil and natural gas prices have soared, filling Putin’s Ukraine war chest,” he said. “Russia is gathering forces for a big spring offensive in Eastern Ukraine, and it’s not even front-page news.”

Ukraine has dispatched drone interceptors and ordered its anti-drone experts to pivot from their war with Russia to help Western allies help intercept Iranian attacks. Zelensky’s allegiance may not pay off, English said.

“When will Ukraine see the benefits of helping the U.S. with anti-drone technology? No time soon, apparently,” he said.

Even several weeks of interruption in Gulf energy supplies could bring the largest windfall to Russia, the Associated Press reported, citing energy analysts.

The economic turmoil caused by the war has exposed vulnerabilities in Europe’s energy system, particularly its lingering dependence on Russian fuel.

Despite sanctions, the European Union remains a major purchaser of Russian natural gas and crude oil. Russian gas accounted for approximately 19% of E.U. gas imports in 2025. Allied Europeans have agreed to completely stop importing Russian liquefied natural gas, oil and pipeline gas by late 2027.

Putin expressed no desire Monday to rescue the European market now that U.S.-Israeli escalations and Iranian retaliation have choked oil production and shipping. The Russian president instead proposed to divert volumes away from the European market “to more promising areas” like the Asia-Pacific region, Slovakia and Hungary, which he said were “reliable counterparties.”

European leaders have been criticized for being “stunned, sidelined, and disunited” since hostilities began in late February. Excluded from the initial military planning by the U.S. and Israel, Europe entered the conflict with gas storage at only 30% capacity, the lowest levels in years. Instead of bold action, English said, European leaders have quarreled over internal divisions and rivalries.

“Sky-high energy prices are the underlying cause of many of these frictions, as Europe struggles now more than ever to find affordable alternatives to the cheap Russian petroleum,” English said.

Antonio Costa, president of the European Council, told European leaders in Brussels on Tuesday that rising energy prices and the world’s shifting attention risk strengthening the Kremlin at a critical moment in the war in Ukraine.

“So far, there is only one winner in this war,” Costa said. “Russia.”

Ukrainian and Russian officials have claimed battlefield successes in the more than four-year war, as Russian air attacks on Ukraine continue.

At least four people were killed in Russian attacks on the Ukrainian town of Sloviansk, regional authorities said on Tuesday.

The governor of Sloviansk, Vadym Filashkin, confirmed the death toll on Tuesday and said 16 others were wounded, including a 14-year-old girl. He said Russian forces dropped three guided bombs on the city.

There was no immediate comment from Moscow on the attack.

Overnight drone strikes on three other Ukrainian cities wounded at least 17 people, including two children, emergency services said.

Ukraine’s air force said that it shot down 122 out of 137 drones that Russia launched during the night.

Warring parties claim advances

Ukrainian forces have recently retaken nearly all the territory of the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk industrial region during a counteroffensive, driving Russian troops out of more than 400 square kilometres (150sq miles), Major-General Oleksandr Komarenko said in an interview published Tuesday by local media outlet RBC-Ukraine.

He described the overall situation on the front line as difficult but under control, with the heaviest fighting continuing near Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine and Oleksandrivka in the south, where he said Russian forces have concentrated their main effort.

There was no independent verification of his description of the military situation.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said late Monday that recent Ukrainian counterattacks “are generating tactical, operational and strategic effects that may disrupt Russia’s spring-summer 2026 offensive campaign plan”.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that Russian forces have extended their gains in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, whose capture Moscow has made one of the goals of its invasion. Ukraine controlled about 25 percent of the Donbas six months ago, but it now holds just 15-17 percent, Putin said.

In Russia, the governor of the border region Bryansk, said a Ukrainian missile strike on Bryansk city had killed at least six people and wounded 37 others.

Alexander Bogomaz said those killed were civilians and that the wounded were admitted to the Bryansk Regional Hospital.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the attack hit a Russian missile plant.

At the same time, a United Nations investigation found that the deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 had amounted to “crimes against humanity”.

The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for President Vladimir Putin and five other Russian officials in 2023 over the alleged illegal deportation of children, which Moscow denies and said it has been evacuating people voluntarily from a warzone.

Trilateral talks ‘next week’

United States special envoy Steve Witkoff told the CNBC news outlet on Tuesday that the next round of trilateral talks between Ukraine, Russia and the US would likely be “sometime next week”.

Trilateral talks were first held in January in the United Arab Emirates; a second meeting was held in February in Geneva, Switzerland. Last year, Russia and Ukraine also held three rounds of talks in Turkiye, yet so far the two countries remain no closer to a deal as key issues, including Russia’s control of Ukrainian territory, are yet to be resolved.

Moscow has repeatedly said it would only agree to a deal that allows it to retain the territories it has seized, while Ukraine has said its territory must be returned in any deal.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Turkiye was prepared to host the next round of trilateral talks after speaking with his Turkish counterpart, President Tayyip Erdogan, on Tuesday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that Kyiv could provide defensive systems as well as assistance to civilians and American soldiers “deployed in certain countries” in the Middle East as the war in Iran continues.

He has reportedly proposed an exchange of Ukrainian defensive technology to combat Iranian drones in return for advanced US defensive systems to use in the war against Russia.

The US-Israel-Iran conflict, which started 10 days ago when the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran and killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has continued to escalate. Iran has responded with strikes on Israel and US military assets and other infrastructure in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

As Gulf and other Middle Eastern states continue to attempt to intercept incoming drones and missiles with US-supplied air defences, the US has asked Ukraine to contribute some of its own air-defence systems.

Here is what we know.

What has the US requested from Ukraine and why?

The US has asked for Ukraine’s help in defending Washington’s allies in the Middle East against Iranian missile attacks on infrastructure and US military assets, Ukraine’s president confirmed last week.

At the moment, the US is using air defence systems such as the Patriot, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) batteries and Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft, to intercept Iranian drones and missiles targeting its military assets in the region. The Patriot Advanced Capability-2 (PAC-2) and PAC-3 are advanced surface-to-air missile defence systems.

However, these types of systems are extremely expensive, costing millions of dollars for each interceptor missile fired, and there are concerns that supplies of US interceptor missiles could run low.

“We received a request from the United States for specific support in protection against ‘shaheds’ in the Middle East region,” Zelenskyy wrote in an X post on March 5.

Shahed drones, particularly the Shahed-136, are Iranian-designed “kamikaze” or loitering munitions which are very low cost compared to the interceptors being used by the US. Costing roughly $20,000-$35,000 each, these GPS-guided drones are about 3.5m (11.5 feet) long and fly autonomously to pre-programmed coordinates to strike fixed targets with explosive payloads. They blow up as they hit their targets.

Over the course of the Iran war, Shahed-136 drones have targeted Middle Eastern countries including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE where US military assets and troops are hosted. Experts estimate that Iran has thousands of these drones.

Iran has also been supplying Moscow with many thousands of Shahed drones during Russia’s war on Ukraine.

During the course of Russia’s four-year war on Ukraine, Ukraine’s domestic arms industry has been forced to innovate, building low-cost interceptor drones priced at roughly $1,000 to $2,000 to counter Russian attacks with imported Iranian Shahed-136s.

Kyiv is now mass-producing these low-cost interceptor drones.

“The role of Shahed-type drones in long-range attacks has become more prominent in Ukraine after Russia took Iranian technology, improved it, and built it in previously unimaginable numbers,” Keir Giles, a Eurasia expert for the UK-based think tank Chatham House, told Al Jazeera.

What has Zelenskyy said?

Zelenskyy has posted several statements on social media confirming that he is ready to help Middle Eastern countries defend their territories by providing technical expertise.

“Ukrainians have been fighting against ‘shahed’ drones for years now, and everyone recognises that no other country in the world has this kind of experience. We are ready to help,” he wrote on X on March 5.

“I gave instructions to provide the necessary means and ensure the presence of Ukrainian specialists who can guarantee the required security.

“Ukraine helps partners who help ensure our security and protect the lives of our people.”

It is understood that Ukraine is in talks with several Middle Eastern countries about this.

On Monday, Zelenskyy said Ukraine has deployed interceptor drones and a team of specialists to help protect US military bases in Jordan.

Zelenskyy wrote on X that he has also spoken directly to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) about “countering threats from the Iranian regime”.

He also said he had spoken with the leaders of Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE.

Zelenskyy has repeatedly stressed that Ukraine must not weaken its own air defences. However, it is mass-producing this equipment now, and may well be able to afford to share.

“The fact that there are surplus capabilities ready to be sent to the US and the Middle East is unsurprising because Ukraine has led this innovation,” Giles said.

Zelenskyy has therefore proposed an exchange of air defence systems with the US ones being used in the Middle East.

“We ourselves are at war. And I said, completely frankly, that we have a shortage of what they have. They have missiles for the Patriots, but hundreds or thousands of ‘shaheds’ cannot be intercepted with Patriot missiles – it is too costly,” Zelenskyy said.

“Meanwhile, we have a shortage of PAC-2 and PAC-3 missiles. So, when it comes to technology or weapons exchange, I believe our country will be open to it.”

Zelenskyy may also have good political reasons for extending help, analysts say.

“The US has declined support for Ukraine on the ground that it had insufficient supply of air defence munitions, and now more of those Patriots have been fired in the Middle East in a few days, than have been supplied to Ukraine in four years,” Giles said.

“Zelenskyy will be aware that in providing this assistance, he is not only shaming the US, but also directly supporting potential friends and partners in the Middle East, who before now have been ambivalent to the situation in Ukraine,” Giles said.

Who else has sent defensive backup to the Gulf?

European countries including the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Italy have pledged to provide defensive backup to Gulf nations over the past week. Additionally, Australia said it was deploying military assets to the region.

Wary of becoming directly involved in the US-Israeli war on Iran, European countries have nevertheless been drawn into the conflict by attacks on a British base on Cyprus in the Mediterranean and Iranian strikes on Western allies in Gulf countries that host US troops in military bases.

What will happen next?

Just as Ukraine is getting involved in the war, Russia might too, say experts.

“We should not be surprised if before long, as well as Russian technology in Iranian drones, we see Iran launching Shaheds manufactured in Russia,” Giles said.

He described Russia as a “primary beneficiary of current US actions,” pointing to how the surge in oil prices, the relaxation in US curbs on Russian energy exports to keep crude and gas prices under control, and the diversion of air defence munitions from Europe to the Middle East all helped Moscow. These, he said, “are all lifelines for Russia”.

Kyiv, Ukraine – As Washington’s Middle Eastern allies use US-made Patriot air defence systems to shoot down Iranian missiles and drones, Ukraine is about to face a dire shortage of ammunition for them.

And Russian President Vladimir Putin is sure to exploit the shortage of pricey guided missiles the truck-mounted Patriots launch at machinegun speed to down his pride and joy, Russia’s ballistic missiles that he once declared were “indestructible”, experts have told Al Jazeera.

The Patriots were developed in the 1970s to down Soviet missiles whose modifications Russia still rains on Ukraine.

The supply of Patriots to Ukraine began in 2023 and was initially limited to several batteries stationed in the capital, Kyiv. The location of the systems was constantly changed to protect them from Russian attacks.

The Patriots utilise advanced radars to detect targets flying at supersonic speeds and launch their guided missiles with the sound that resembles super-fast electronic beats – up to 32 missiles per minute.

But the noise – along with thunderous shockwaves that follow split-second, sun-bright explosions – made Ukrainians feel safe during harrowing, hours-long Russian assaults that have targeted civilian areas and involve hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles.

Within weeks after their deployment, the Patriots intercepted Russia’s Kinzhal (Dagger) intercontinental ballistic missiles that are launched by supersonic fighter jets and fly in the Earth’s stratosphere.

The interceptions disproved Putin’s earlier claims that the Kinzhals made any Western air defence systems “useless”.

The safety, however, came with a hefty price tag – each Patriot guided missile costs several million dollars, and their manufacturing never exceeded more than 900 units a year.

‘Tomorrow’s problem’

Some 800 guided missiles have been used to repel Iranian aerial attacks within just three days after Tehran began raining its missiles and drones on almost a dozen nations, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Thursday.

“Ukraine has never had this many missiles to repel attacks,” Zelenskyy said, reiterating his readiness to dispatch Ukrainian experts and drone interceptors to help Gulf nations counter the attacks.

The shortage of guided missiles is, however, not immediate and may occur in several weeks.

“This is not today’s problem, this is tomorrow’s problem,” Volodymyr Fesenko, head of the Kyiv-based Center for Applied Political Studies (Penta) think tank, told Al Jazeera.

But the problem may become catastrophic.

In recent days, Moscow stopped attacking Ukraine with drones and missiles – a sign of amassing them for massive raids in the near future, Fesenko said.

“Russia’s most obvious actions would be to bleed Ukraine’s stock of Patriot missiles dry to inflict maximal damage on us through massive missile attacks,” he said.

Kyiv already faces a less critical problem with the shortage of missiles for Western-supplied F-16 fighter jets that proved effective in downing Russian missiles.

“The problem is less critical, but also vital for us,” Fesenko said.

Ukraine has experienced a shortage of Patriot missiles before.

Last summer, when the US and Israel struck Iranian nuclear sites, the Pentagon stopped the Patriot missiles’ supply as it was “auditing” its own stocks.

The suspension of Patriot interceptors and HIMARS multiple rocket launchers left Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, including thermal power stations and transport hubs, more vulnerable to Russian attacks.

Russia’s tactics of indiscriminate aerial strikes have been tried and tested over the past four years.

Moscow starts an air raid with drones and decoy drones to make Ukrainian air defence units use as many Patriot missiles as possible.

It then launches several more waves of attack drones and ballistic and cruise missiles.

As to upcoming attacks, “the question is that this time, it won’t be energy infrastructure, but whatever other targets the Kremlin will want to choose”, Kyiv-based analyst Igar Tyshkevych told Al Jazeera.

He referred to devastating attacks on energy and central heating facilities that left millions of Ukrainians without power and heat this winter, triggering health problems and deaths from hypothermia.

Russia already targets sites unprotected by Patriots: Military expert

Meanwhile, Israel and the European nations that pledged to transfer their stock of Patriot missiles to Ukraine are reluctant to do so now.

“Considering the general instability, I don’t think that many nations will open up their stock and pass it on to us,” Tyshkevich said.

Since the supplies of Patriots began, the US-Russian technological battle has kept raging on, according to the former deputy head of Ukraine’s general staff of armed forces, who for decades specialised in air defence.

“There is a confrontation in engineering,” Lieutenant-General Ihor Romanenko told Al Jazeera.

“Russians change something, Americans together with our experts change something else, because remaining on the old [technological] level means losing the battle before it begins.”

Russian engineers “modified software making the [Iskander-M] missiles able to manoeuvre mid-air, and the modernisation largely complicated the operation of the few Patriot systems that we have to destroy them,” Romanenko said.

The Patriots, however, have not become a Ukraine-wide aegis against the Russian strikes.

Ukraine has fewer than a dozen batteries, while Kyiv said it needed at least 25.

Russians “already know that we have but a few Patriot batteries against their ballistic missiles, so they were hitting the sites that had not been covered by the Patriots, or where they had not been deployed,” Romanenko said.

Luckily, Ukraine has an alternative.

A handful of French-Italian SAMP/T systems with solid-fuel anti-aircraft missiles have been deployed to Ukraine since 2023 and showed the advantages of their radars and “engagement logic” with high-speed targets.

While a Patriot battery requires up to 90 support servicemen and takes half an hour to deploy, SAMP/Ts require about a dozen.

But their ability to down modified Russian missiles will have to be battle-tested, Romanenko said.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s increasingly daring drone and missile strikes deep inside Russia destroy or damage their arm depots and plants producing drones and missiles.

In recent weeks, they hit the Admiral Essen, a Russian frigate capable of launching Kalibr cruise missiles from the Black Sea, nine air defence systems in Russia-occupied Donetsk and Crimea, and Russia’s only plant that produces fibre-optic cable for drones.

Foreign Minister Cho Hyun said Friday that Ukraine has assured him that two North Korean soldiers captured while fighting alongside Russia will not be repatriated to Moscow.

Cho made the remarks during a parliamentary session, responding to a lawmaker’s question regarding the captives who remain in Ukrainian custody since they were captured during combat on Russia’s side in the front-line Kursk region in January last year.

Earlier this month, Rep. Yu Yong-weon of the main opposition People Power Party said after visiting Ukraine that Russia had included the two soldiers on its list of prisoners it demanded be released in a prisoner-of-war (POW) exchange.

“I have received confirmation from my Ukrainian counterpart that the soldiers will not be repatriated (to Russia),” Cho said. “There is no need to worry about the possibility of them being sent back to North Korea or Russia.”

Asked to confirm whether the soldiers were on the POW exchange list, Cho avoided giving a straight answer, indicating that Ukraine would not share such details with Seoul.

Cho stressed that disclosing any details about the soldiers could jeopardize their safety, adding that the foreign ministry is making every effort to ensure their safety and bring them to South Korea in accordance with the Constitution.

Through media interviews, the soldiers have expressed their intention to come to South Korea rather than being sent back to the North.

Yu has called for sending a presidential envoy to Ukraine to discuss their defection, saying their repatriation to Pyongyang cannot be ruled out.

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WASHINGTON — New signs of a widening regional conflict emerged Thursday as the war with Iran entered its sixth day, with European allies pledging warships and access to military bases for the U.S. campaign, Israel intensifying strikes in Lebanon against Hezbollah militants, and Kurdish forces preparing for a potential incursion into northern Iran.

Iran continued retaliatory missile and drone attacks against Israel and U.S. military sites across the region. The strikes hit at least “10 countries that did not attack [Iran],” British Prime Minister Kier Starmer said at a news conference Thursday.

Starmer announced new military deployments and confirmed the U.K. will allow American forces to use British bases for defensive operations against Iran. The move was a reversal of Starmer’s initial cautious approach, which drew criticism from President Trump, who said, “He’s no Winston Churchill.”

“I took the decision that the U.K. would not join the initial strikes on Iran by the U.S. and Israel,” Starmer said. “That decision was deliberate. It was in the national interest. And I stand by it. But when Iran started attacking countries around the Gulf and the wider region, the situation changed.”

The United Kingdom will send four additional RAF Typhoon jets to reinforce its squadron in Qatar, deploy Wildcat helicopters with anti-drone capabilities to Cyprus and dispatch the Royal Navy destroyer HMS Dragon to the eastern Mediterranean.

The moves place Britain among the most active European partners supporting the U.S. war effort, as Starmer warned that the conflict will likely “continue for some time,” he said. It comes after an Iranian drone struck a British military base in Cyprus on Monday, which has led to a mounting of European naval resources.

Located just 150 miles from Israel in the eastern Mediterranean, the island of Cyprus has emerged as a strategic — and exposed — nerve center in the U.S. offensive against Iran. It hosts vital British military bases and acts as an intelligence, surveillance, and logistics hub in countering Iranian influence and proxy attacks.

On Thursday, Italy’s defense minister, Guido Crosetto, said Thursday that his country would follow the lead of France, Spain and the Netherlands to aid in the defense of Cyprus.

“Within the EU it made sense to send a message of support to Cyprus,” he said.

Smoke plumes billow following Israeli bombardment on Beirut’s southern suburbs on Monday.

(Ibrahim Amro/AFP via Getty Images)

Spain announced Thursday it would dispatch its advanced frigate Cristóbal Colón to Cyprus, after initially maintaining a “no to war” stance.

France also authorized temporary access to U.S. aircraft on bases located on French soil, a French army general staff official told Reuters.

And Germany, a country that has explicitly ruled out military participation in war with Iran and has criticized the legality of the initial U.S.–Israeli strikes, said Western powers must prepare for further escalation.

“Europe must remain united in the face of this crisis,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said during an emergency meeting of European leaders. “We will not allow ourselves to be divided while regional stability is threatened.”

Meanwhile, conflict has reached a fever pitch between Israel and Hezbollah, the Lebanese-based Iranian proxy and key pillar of what Iran has called the “Axis of Resistance.” Overnight, Israel launched heavy airstrikes across southern Lebanon and issued urgent evacuation warnings for the southern suburbs of the capital, Beirut.

The outbreak of hostilities in Lebanon marks the end of a Israeli-Hezbollah truce and the opening of a major second front in the war with Iran. The fighting erupted after Hezbollah launched a barrage of drones and rockets at Israeli military sites—a retaliation for the joint U.S.-Israeli assassination of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Lebanon’s health ministry reported that at least 102 people have been killed by the Israeli strikes so far. In the Beirut suburbs, the Israeli military ordered residents of the Hezbollah-dominated Dahieh district to “save your lives and evacuate your homes immediately.”

“Dahieh? There’s not going to be a Dahieh any more,” one young man said as he talked to a family member on the phone at a media vantage point in the nearby hills.

The widening conflict has also drawn in Ukraine, which has some of the world’s most extensive experience in defending against Iranian-made Shahed drones. Such drones have been deployed by Russia in its war on Ukraine.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said late Wednesday that the United States and other allies in Europe and the Middle East have sought Kyiv’s “expertise and practical support” to help them stop Iranian drones.

“Of course, any assistance we provide is only on the condition that it does not weaken our own defense in Ukraine and that it serves as an investment in our diplomatic capabilities,” Zelensky said in a social media post. “We help protect against war those who help us — Ukraine — bring the war to a dignified conclusion.”

While the aerial and naval battle intensifies across the Middle East, a ground war may also be on the horizon.

People arrive to sign a condolence book in memory of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at the Embassy of Iran in New Delhi, India, on Thursday.

(Raj K Raj/Hindustan Times via Getty Images)

The United States and Israel have increased coordination with Kurdish armed groups along Iran’s western frontier, hoping to exploit longstanding tensions between Tehran and Kurdish factions opposed to the Iranian government, Kurdish officials told the Associated Press.

Iranian forces have already launched missile and drone strikes against Kurdish-controlled areas in northern Iraq following the initial U.S.–Israeli assault on Iranian targets.

Those strikes targeted areas around the city of Erbil and on Kurdish opposition groups operating near the Iranian border, locations where U.S. military forces and diplomatic facilities are also present.

Officials have not publicly confirmed whether Kurdish groups will mount cross-border operations, but security analysts say an incursion into Iranian territory could open a new front in the conflict.

U.S. Central Command, meanwhile, is asking the Pentagon to send more military intelligence officers to its headquarters in Tampa, Florida, to support operations against Iran for at least 100 days, but likely through September, according to a notification obtained by Politico.

The moves come as the House prepares to vote Thursday on a war powers resolution that would withdraw U.S. forces from hostilities in Iran, and limit the president’s power to wage war in the region. A similar measure failed Wednesday in the Senate, mostly along party lines.

Quinton reported from Washington and Bulos from Beirut.

“I’m not going to start a war. I’m going to stop wars.”
— Donald Trump, in his victory speech Nov. 6, 2024

It’s bad enough that President Trump has broken that oft-repeated pledge and unilaterally started a war, without engaging either Congress or the American public. And that, by his war of choice against Iran, he has in the most perilous way to date betrayed his signature “America First” standard, at least as longtime proponents Marjorie Taylor Greene, Megyn Kelly, Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson and others mean it, and as many people thought he did too.

What’s even worse than Trump’s mendacity about stopping foreign wars is the broader truth that his war on Iran underscores: In the major theaters of U.S. foreign policy — the Mideast, Europe and Asia — he is essentially letting foreigners set his course, America’s course. And to state the obvious: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping do not have America’s interests at heart.

It has long been a defining contradiction of Trump that the wannabe strongman repeatedly shows himself to be in thrall to the world’s actual strongmen. His affinity for them has for years puzzled observers in this country and abroad. Trump strikes a pose — say, on negotiating with Iran about its nukes program, promising peace in Ukraine, hitting China with tariffs — only to crumple after a phone call, a meeting or a slap back from his opposite number.

It’s always hard for a person without a strong core to maintain a stand.

Obviously different factors are at play in Trump’s relationships with Israel, a U.S. ally, with longtime adversaries Russia and China and, more specifically, with each nation’s leaders. But all three cases reflect a personalization of foreign policy that is dangerously unique to Trump. For him, it’s less “what’s good for my country” than “what’s good for me” and “who likes me.” Time and again, he’s been explicit about that.

For all Trump’s cosplaying as a strongman, he shows his weakness as a national leader when he lets foreign counterparts share the wheel with him. As a consequence, he’s driving America erratically at best. At worst, he’s steering into another costly, bloody “forever war” of the sort he railed against for decades.

He’s gone in a direction in the Middle East that, polls show, pluralities or even majorities of Americans didn’t want to go. Trump has received none of the initial rally ’round support that past presidents enjoyed after initiating military operations. That’s a hazardous place to be domestically. Most Republicans are behind Trump on the war, but not by the usual high numbers. After all, it was disgust with forever wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that sent many people flocking to Trump’s “America First” banner to begin with.

For years he warned that other presidents and presidential candidates would start a war in Iran, World War III even. Yet here we are. And after days of what Kelly derided on air as the “10,000 different explanations” that Trump has given for attacking Iran and killing its top political and military leaders, on Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio emphatically provided just one: Because Israel was going to strike Iran first, the United States had to join the attack to protect U.S. personnel and assets in the region from Iran’s retaliation.

Cue the blowback in MAGA world: “He’s flat out telling us that we’re in a war with Iran because Israel forced our hand,” MAGA pundit Matt Walsh lashed out online. And then Trump contradicted his secretary of State on the rationale for the attacks. Yet Rubio wasn’t the only one citing Israel’s plans as the war’s predicate. So did House Speaker “MAGA Mike” Johnson. On Tuesday, Trump himself said he had to act fast because the Iranians “were getting ready to attack Israel.”

As Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, responded, “If we equate a threat to Israel as the equivalent of an imminent threat to the United States, then we are in uncharted territory.”

Similarly, in June, Trump ordered a devastating one-off strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities to support Israel’s 12-day war against Iran. For months after, Netanyahu hounded Trump to stop the subsequent peace talks with Iran and go back on offense with Israel. So now Trump has complied, striking even as negotiations with Iran were ongoing. Sen. Lindsey Graham, the once respected Republican from South Carolina, offered his sycophantic spin: “Bibi and Trump are the modern Roosevelt-Churchill combination.”

The latters’ grave sites surely trembled.

As for Asia, Trump talks a good game against China, and, yes, he’s imposed big tariffs. But just as often he’s backtracked, often after talking with Xi. Trump’s admiration of the Chinese autocrat and his eagerness to please him is palpable. In fact, in dealing with Xi, Trump in both of his terms has violated his own words in “The Art of the Deal”: “The worst thing you can possibly do in a deal is seem desperate to make it. That makes the other guy smell blood, and then you’re dead.”

No one is more worried about Trump’s regard for Xi than the Taiwanese, living under threat from China. Just recently Trump delayed arms sales to Taiwan approved by Congress lest he upset Xi ahead of their Beijing meeting in April.

In Europe, meanwhile, Trump continues to be played by Putin at the “peace” table to end Russia’s war in Ukraine — the war that candidate Trump said he’d settle in a day. More than a year later, he continues to harangue Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky to make concessions to the invader, never demanding anything from Putin.

Most heinously, Trump’s 28-point “peace” plan last November incorporated everything that Putin/Russia dreamed of extracting from Ukraine, and for good reason: The proposal came from Moscow, passed from Putin’s flunky to Trump’s. That followed Trump’s humiliating summit with Putin last August in Alaska, giving the globally reviled Russian an American stage and pageantry and serving no purpose for the United States, only for Trump the showman. All the while, Russia continued ravaging Ukraine.

So much for Trump’s election promise. He doesn’t stop wars (his repeated claims to the contrary). But he does start them.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin accuses Ukraine of carrying out a ‘terrorist attack.’

A Russian tanker carrying liquefied natural gas (LNG) has sunk in the Mediterranean between Libya and Malta, as Moscow accused Ukraine of attacking the vessel.

The Libyan port authority said the tanker was hit by “sudden explosions followed by a massive fire, which ultimately led to its complete sinking” on Tuesday night north of the port of Sirte, Libya.

Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Ukraine of attacking the gas carrier.

“This is a terrorist attack. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this kind of thing,” Russia’s Putin told a reporter from Russian state television on Wednesday, accusing Kyiv of responsibility.

There was no immediate comment from Ukraine.

Russia’s Transport Ministry said that the Arctic Metagaz, which had been carrying LNG from the Arctic port of Murmansk, was attacked by Ukrainian naval drones launched from the coast of Libya.

It said the 30 crew members, all Russian nationals, were safe, and thanked Maltese rescue services.

“We qualify what happened as an act of international terrorism and maritime piracy, a gross violation of the fundamental norms of international maritime law,” the ministry said.

According to an advisory from Libya’s maritime rescue agency, the Arctic Metagaz sank in waters between Libya and Malta after catching fire on Tuesday night.

It warned vessels to avoid the site where the carrier sank and asked them to report any pollution in the area.

The Libyan port authority said the ship was carrying an estimated 62,000 metric tons of liquefied natural gas (LNG) on its way to Port Said, Egypt.

Egypt’s Petroleum Ministry has denied any connection with the tanker.

“The tanker is not listed under any contracts to supply or receive LNG cargoes to Egypt,” the ministry said.

The Arctic Metagaz has been sanctioned by the United States and the European Union as part of Russia’s fleet of ageing tankers that carry oil and gas exports around the world, skirting Western restrictions.

Ukraine has frequently targeted Russian oil refineries and other energy infrastructure in an attempt to deprive Russia’s war machine of funding.

In December, Ukraine said it had hit a Russian tanker with aerial drones in the neutral waters of the Mediterranean Sea, in what was the first such strike there in Russia and Ukraine’s more than four-year war.

March 4 (UPI) — A Russian liquefied natural gas tanker sank in the Mediterranean Sea on Wednesday after catching fire from what Russian officials said was an attack by Ukrainian drones.

Libyan port officials said there were explosions on the ship and it ultimately erupted in flames between Libya and Malta. The tanker was carrying about 62,000 metric ton of liquefied natural gas.

Thirty crew members were rescued and no deaths have been reported, TASS Russian News Agency reports.

Ukraine‘s security service has not commented on the incident.

The Russian Transport Ministry said in a statement that the tanker was attacked by unmanned Ukrainian boats.

The tanker was about 130 nautical miles north of the Sirte, Libya, port when it sank. It departed from the port of Murmansk, Russia.

“We qualify what happened as an act of international terrorism and maritime piracy, a gross violation of the fundamental norms of international maritime law,” the Russian Transport Ministry said in a statement.

“Such criminal actions, carried out with the connivance of the authorities of European Union member states, must not remain without assessment by the international community.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin echoed the statement of the transport ministry, calling it a “terrorist attack.”

The ministry adds that the tanker was operating in “full compliance with all international regulations.”

It was a new-look England as Wiegman is managing the return of several key players from injury, while rewarding those in form.

Manchester City’s Laura Blindkilde Brown was handed a rare start, while London City Lionesses defender Poppy Pattinson made her debut in the second half.

The back four in the starting XI had fewer than 100 caps combined – with captain Leah Williamson earning 65 of them – as Maya Le Tissier was at right-back over Lucy Bronze, while Taylor Hinds started her third game in four matches at left-back.

In-form Jess Park was playing out wide, as she has done for Manchester United so impressively this season, rather than in midfield where Wiegman has often used her.

It was uncharacteristically experimental from Wiegman considering this was their first competitive fixture since Euro 2025 and it took time to take shape.

England had 40 touches in the opposition box and 85% of the possession in the first half, but failed to score from their 15 efforts on goal.

The tempo had dropped, Ukraine were defending well and England’s hopes of flying out of the blocks had not materialised.

“They didn’t quite figure it out in the first half. They were a little bit stunned about what to do,” ex-England midfielder Fran Kirby told BBC Radio 5 Live Extra.

“Ukraine defended really well. They were really tight between the lines and they made it very difficult for England.

“They needed to have a little bit more composure in the box instead of crossing it for the sake of crossing it.

“The second half showed that they learned from the first half in terms of what wasn’t working.”

With a side stacked full of quality, the two-time European champions responded in the second half.

Arsenal striker Alessia Russo netted two goals in four minutes to put England in control, before a double from Georgia Stanway took them out of Ukraine’s reach.

Wiegman’s “clear win” was confirmed when Park also scored twice later on.

“I think it took us the first half to break them down. We were still very good in the first half. They were defensively solid,” said Russo afterwards.

“When the spaces opened, we took our chances. I wouldn’t say it was relief [when we scored]. We knew we had the quality in us and it was just executing it.

“It was finding the final moment, the final pass and the final shot. You saw that in the second half.”

These are the key developments from day 1,465 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is where things stand on Saturday, February 28:

Fighting

• Russia struck port infrastructure overnight in Ukraine’s southern Odesa region, igniting fires and damaging equipment, warehouses and food containers, Deputy Prime Minister Oleksii Kuleba said.
• A localised truce has been established near the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant to allow repairs to power lines, Russian news agencies report, citing the head of Russia’s state nuclear corporation.
• Ukraine shot down a drone near the border with Romania during a Russian attack on port infrastructure on the Danube River, Romania’s Ministry of National Defence said.
• Romania said it scrambled fighter jets and that the drone was brought down 100 metres (110 yards) from the Romanian village of Chilia Veche, on the opposite side of the Danube River to Ukraine.
• Russian forces have taken control of the village of Biliakivka in the Dnipropetrovsk region of eastern Ukraine, the Russian RIA Novosti state news agency reported, citing the Ministry of Defence.
• Ukraine’s military said it struck an oil depot in the Russian-occupied Luhansk region overnight, causing a large fire at the facility.
• Firefighters were trying to bring a fire at an oil refinery in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region under control, local officials said early Saturday.
• Ukraine is considering forming partnerships with allies to build air defences capable of intercepting ballistic missiles and to address a critical shortage of munitions for United States-made Patriot systems, the country’s defence minister said.
• Ghana’s Foreign Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa said 55 Ghanaians had been killed fighting in Ukraine, and that some 272 citizens of the African country are believed to have been lured to fight for Russia in Ukraine since 2022.

Regional security

• The Swedish military intercepted a suspected Russian drone off the country’s south coast while a French aircraft carrier was docked in Malmo, officials said.
• Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was “absurd” to suggest the drone that was electronically disabled near a French aircraft carrier in Sweden earlier this week was Russian.
• The European Commission said Croatia is assessing whether it can legally import seaborne Russian crude to supply Hungary and Slovakia through its Adria pipeline.
• The move by Croatia follows after oil supplies via the Ukrainian section of the Druzhba pipeline to Hungary and Slovakia – the only European Union countries still importing Russian oil – were halted last month due to damage Ukraine blamed on a Russian drone strike.
• In a video posted on Facebook, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban urged Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to grant Hungarian and Slovak inspectors access to repair and restart the Druzhba pipeline.

• President Zelenskyy said he had not been offered nuclear weapons by the United Kingdom or France, but added he would accept such an offer “with pleasure”, after Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service accused both countries of working to provide Kyiv with a nuclear bomb.
• Poland’s parliament approved a law to implement the EU’s Security Action for Europe (SAFE) defence procurement programme aimed at boosting member states’ military readiness.

Economy

• The International Monetary Fund said its executive board had approved an $8.1bn, four-year loan for Ukraine, anchoring a broader $136.5bn international support package. The World Bank estimates Ukraine will need $588bn for post-war reconstruction.
• Economists say Russia is grappling with heavy state defence spending alongside deepening structural challenges, including labour shortages and high inflation.
• Ukraine’s major steelmaker ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih said it is closing another division due to a worsening energy crisis caused by continued Russian attacks on Ukraine’s power system.

Peace talks

• Bilateral talks between US and Ukrainian officials in Geneva concluded on Thursday, with Kyiv saying preparations are under way for the next round of negotiations aimed at ending the war.
• Ukraine’s chief negotiator, Rustem Umerov, said on X that discussions were held in two formats: separate meetings with the United States and a trilateral session involving the US and Switzerland.
• Umerov said participants spoke with President Zelenskyy and were working to ensure the next three-sided meeting with Russia on a settlement is “as substantive as possible”.

Politics and diplomacy

• Former British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has begun advising the Ukrainian government on economic renewal as Kyiv works to rebuild its energy sector before next winter.
• Finland, Ukraine and the Czech Republic will skip the opening ceremony of the Milano Cortina Paralympics in protest against the inclusion of Russian athletes competing under their own flag while the war in Ukraine is ongoing.
• German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said “diplomacy cannot succeed at the moment” with Russia, and that greater emphasis should be placed on defending Ukraine from Moscow’s aggression.

When Dalia Stasevska heard opera music for the first time, it was a moment of profound self-revelation. She was 13, growing up in the factory town of Tampere in the south of Finland, and her school librarian gave her a CD of Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” along with a translation of its Italian libretto.

“As a teenage girl, this dramatic story touched my soul,” Stasevska says, adding that she still remembers the experience and thinking, “ ‘This music understands me, this is exactly how I feel.’ And that was…when I knew that I wanted to become a musician.”

Stasevska is now chief conductor of Finland’s Lahti Symphony Orchestra and a prodigious conductor of orchestral music in all forms. A busy guest baton with companies around the globe, she will make her L.A. Opera debut this Saturday with a production of “Akhnaten” by Philip Glass, running through late March.

John Holiday in the title role of L.A. Opera’s 2026 production of “Akhnaten.”

(Cory Weaver)

The seminal work by Glass lands at L.A. Opera just a month after the world-famous composer abruptly canceled June’s world premiere of Symphony No. 15 “Lincoln” at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. “While Philip Glass has pulled out of Kennedy Center, his music will be front and center at our production,” a rep for L.A. Opera wrote in an email.

Stasevska, with her razor-sharp appreciation of the power of Glass’ work, is the ideal conductor to bring it there.

Stasevska, 41, walks from the ornate foyer of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, with its emerald green carpets and gleaming chandeliers, to the more ordinary hallways and cubicles of L.A. Opera’s offices. She’s been in town rehearsing for a few weeks and jokes with some of the show’s jugglers in a kitchenette, where she makes herself a machine pod coffee.

The conductor is petite with large, expressive eyes and a Cheshire cat’s smile. Her mouth often pulls to the right when she speaks, her admirable non-native English tugged easterly in a Finnish accent.

Opera remains her great love, and it seems a perfect twist of fate that Stasevska was tapped to conduct “Akhnaten.” She saw it for the first time in 2019 at a Helsinki cinema, in a global broadcast of a production by the Met. She couldn’t believe her friend dozed off.

“I was like, ‘How could you fall asleep? This was the best thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I would do anything to conduct this opera,’ ” she recalls saying.

Stasevska was born in 1984, the same year that Glass’ hypnotic, ritualistic opera, about an Egyptian pharaoh who dared to push monotheism onto his polytheistic culture, debuted in Stuttgart, Germany. Eight months later, Stasevska entered the world in the Soviet-controlled city of Kyiv, the child of a Ukrainian father and Finnish mother.

Conductor Dalia Stasevska, who is making her L.A. Opera debut with Philip Glass’ “Akhnaten,” says that opera is her first great love.

(David Butow / For the Times)

It was a fluke that she was born in Ukraine. Her parents, both painters, were living in the Estonian capital of Tallinn, also under Soviet rule, but found themselves in a Kyiv hospital close to family when Stasevska arrived. She’s never lived in Ukraine — she spent her first few years in Tallinn before moving to Finland at age 5— but her life has been infused with its heritage.

Her father, who as a teenager in Tallinn began to rebel against Sovietization, insisted on teaching Stasevska and her two younger brothers to speak Ukrainian at home. Her grandmother, Iryna, lived with the family and was an important caretaker for much of her childhood. Stasevska grew up hearing fantastic stories filled with dreamlike imagery of the homeland.

“She was such a civilized, cultural person,” Stasevska says of her grandmother, adding that she taught her grandkids everything she knew about her home country. That’s why, even though Stasevska was raised in Finland, she grew up eating Ukrainian food and hearing Ukrainian folk tunes. “I know the language and understand the culture,” she says.

Stasevska grew up poor, but music education was mandatory for her and her brothers: “My father said, ‘This is going to be your profession.’ It was no question that this is not a hobby. So we started practicing immediately, very determined. There was maybe some forcing involved,” she says, laughing.

She played the violin from age 8, but it was only after she heard Puccini at 13 that she fell in love with classical music. She became obsessed with the opera and orchestral repertoires and was immediately determined to play in an orchestra. She approached the headmaster at her conservatory who placed her in a string ensemble before advancing her to the symphony orchestra as a violinist.

At 18, Stasevska entered the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, which is named after Finland’s most famous composer, Jean Sibelius. She couldn’t stop herself from stealing a peek at the school conductor’s score, copying bowings and poring over the details, but she didn’t indulge any dreams of taking the podium herself. “I was going every week to the concerts,” she says, “but it took me so long to see somebody that looked like me.”

She was 20 when she saw a female conductor for the first time, calling it “the second big moment in my life.” When Stasevska expressed interest in trying it herself, she was referred to Jorma Panula, a legendary conductor and teacher in Finland. Panula invited her to attend one of his masterclasses, and on the first downbeat of her first experience conducting, “I knew immediately that this was beyond anything I’ve experienced in my life,” she says. “It became this kind of madness moment.”

She loved the sheer physicality of it, she says, but also “that I can affect the music, and that I can affect the interpretation, because I had so much in my heart that I felt about the music.”

After completing her conducting studies in 2012, Stasevska assisted Panula — who emphasized discovering unique “gestures in such a way that the orchestral musicians know what you mean,” she says. She also worked with her fellow Finn, Esa-Pekka Salonen. Stasevska became principal guest conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra in 2019 and chief of the Lahti Symphony in 2020.

When she’s not globetrotting, Stasevska lives in Helsinki with her young daughter and her husband, Lauri Porra — a heavy metal bassist who is also the great-grandson of Sibelius.

She likes to champion new music — her 2024 album, “Dalia’s Mixtape,” featured works by Anna Meredith, Caroline Shaw and other contemporary composers. She is also a vocal supporter of the land where she was born and has spoken out against Russia’s war in Ukraine.

John Holiday as Akhnaten, with So Young Park, at right, as Queen Tye, in L.A. Opera’s 2026 production of “Akhnaten.”

(Cory Weaver)

Stasevska’s L.A. Opera debut arrives on the same week as the fourth anniversary of Russia’s invasion. Both of her brothers — one a film director, the other a journalist — moved to Ukraine and have borne witness to the war, which has given her “another level of experiencing this horror,” she says.

Stasevska has made it her mission to raise funds — more than 250,000 euros to date — to provide basic supplies particularly for children and elders who are without power and huddling in freezing cold homes. She has even driven in supplies herself by truck.

She has also conducted concerts there — and her next album will celebrate the country’s composers in a meaningful way. “Ukrainian Mixtape,” which she recorded with the BBC Symphony Orchestra in London, features works by five composers who range from the 19th century to the 1960s. Three are premiere recordings of artists who have been completely forgotten, which required a year of searching for materials.

“I think that it will not leave anybody cold,” Staveska says, “and I hope that it will inspire everybody to discover Ukrainian music more, and that we will hear it more on main stages of the world — where it deserves to be.”

For now, though, her focus is on ancient Egypt and Philip Glass — and opera. She says her goal, in every concert, is to give audiences the same experience she had when she was 13, that remarkable feeling that the music uniquely understands them.

Kyiv, Ukraine – Posters advertising “The Azov school of landscape design” can be seen inside subway cars and on billboards in Kyiv.

But instead of a smiling gardener surrounded by blossoming trees and flowers, the poster depicts a bearded, smiling soldier with the Azov Corps walking away from a howitzer that spews out a shell to “design” the landscape on the Russian side.

As Ukrainian soldiers keep getting killed and wounded along the crescent-shaped, 1,250-kilometre (777-mile) long front line, Kyiv faces a dire shortage of servicemen.

Individual military units compete for potential recruits and lure them with catchy slogans, witty campaigns, text messages and social media posts that promise thorough training that reduces the risk of getting killed or jobs behind the front line.

Many Ukrainian men of fighting age – 25 to 60 – who cannot refuse the draft choose to join them. Otherwise, they could be rounded up by “conscription patrols” and undergo perfunctory training to end up as storm-troopers – a role which comes with a high risk of death.

“There’s zero training. They don’t care that I won’t survive the very first attack,” Tymofey, a 36-year-old office worker who was forcibly conscripted last year but broke out of two training centres, told Al Jazeera.

Hundreds of thousands of men dodge the draft, pay bribes to flee abroad or illegally cross into European nations amid corruption and coercion on the part of conscription officers, as documented by government officials, media and rights groups.

In the first year after Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion, men of all ages volunteered in droves, standing for hours outside conscription offices and even travelling to other parts of Ukraine to find a less crowded conscription office that would enlist them.

“The first wave very massive, they were motivated,” a senior serviceman told Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity.

But volunteers are rare these days. The average age of conscripts has risen to above 40, and their fitness levels have dropped.

“We get what is left of what is left,” he said of the new recruits in his military unit – adding that infantrymen are “hardest to recruit”.

“They can and will be trained, but there’s a matter of condition. A man in his 50s with a white-collar job and several chronic diseases is not exactly fit,” he said.

Azov’s hiring spree

While recruitment campaigns are very visible, the hiring process is largely non-transparent.

Most of the applications should be filled online, and only prospective candidates are invited to recruitment offices whose locations are not disclosed because Russia targets them with drones, missiles or attacks by people recruited via messaging apps or the dark web.

And when it comes to picking the cream of the crop, Azov, now known as the First National Guard Corps, and its offshoot, The Third Storm Brigade, reign supreme.

Apart from the “school of landscape design,” Azov has billboards and online advertisements offering sarcastically named “courses” in “content making,” “event management” and “cross-fit”.

Azov has, for years, been one of Ukraine’s most outspoken military units, and its servicemen were dubbed “300 Spartans” for their months-long defence of the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol in early 2022 that ended only when top brass ordered them to surrender.

Some 700 of Azov fighters are still behind bars in Russia, facing torture and starvation, according to swapped servicemen and Ukrainian officials.

They have become the bogeymen of the Kremlin propaganda machine that calls them “neo-Nazis” and claims they “terrorise” civilians and stage their killings to blame Russian “liberators”.

Azov had far-right origins, but the current leadership claims to have cleaned up the brigade, denying any links with “extremist” groups. Al Jazeera is unable to independently verify these claims.

The publicity and halo of martyrdom have raised Azov’s domestic profile.

And what its recruiters offer is a “soldier-centred” approach that takes into account each potential serviceman’s background, shape, medical history and military experience – or lack thereof.

“We are building a system centred around a soldier, because a soldier is not a resource, it’s the basis of the whole system,” a senior Azov recruiter who identified himself by his call sign, Tara, told Al Jazeera in one of Azov’s open spaces in central Kyiv.

The open space is a far cry from average Ukrainian conscription centres usually located in gloom, claustrophobic Soviet-era buildings with drafty corridors and creaky floors.

It has a cafeteria with a menu most hipsters would find palatable, and a shop with trendy T-shirts, hoodies and souvenirs.

“A nation that doesn’t stand up for its heroes kneels before the enemy,” a handwritten sign on a wall reads.

Tara said that aspiring Azov servicemen undergo tests and interviews – and choose a job “with the highest efficiency

“We, for our part, guarantee that [the recruits] will serve in the exact position for which they have been approved.”

All of Azov’s recruiters are battle-tested servicemen, said Tara, who volunteered to join nascent Azov in 2014.

With a tidy moustache and at the towering height of six feet, five inches (1.95 metres) tall, he took part in Azov’s transformation from ragtag volunteer crews of football fans and nationalists who were instrumental in repelling the onslaught of Russia-backed separatists in southeastern Ukraine, into a primary military unit.

Meanwhile, smaller, less outspoken units can barely find enough recruits to replenish their losses.

“We ask around, we tell friends, we say that we can make sure they get trained properly, but it’s never enough,” Oleh, a senior officer with a military unit stationed in eastern Ukraine, told Al Jazeera.

And some are adamant that Ukraine should introduce a system of compulsory and universal military service.

“All privileges must be cancelled, all men of fighting age should undergo training and be ready for service. Otherwise, we’ll keep on losing ground,” retired Lieutenant-General Ihor Romanenko, former deputy head of Ukraine’s general staff of armed forces, told Al Jazeera.

Arrest in town near the Ethiopian border follows Kenyan intelligence report revealing more than 1,000 citizens were trafficked for war.

Police in Kenya have arrested a man accused of being a member of a human trafficking scheme that lured Kenyans to Russia with false promises of work, only for them to end up fighting on the front lines of Ukrainian battlefields.

In a statement released late on Wednesday, Kenyan officials said Festus Arasa Omwamba was being detained in Moyale, a town in the country’s north bordering Ethiopia.

The 33-year-old “is believed to be a key player in a more extensive human trafficking syndicate that exploits vulnerable individuals by promising them legitimate employment opportunities in European countries”, read a statement from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations on X. “However, upon arrival, these unsuspecting victims find themselves trapped in illegal and perilous jobs, stripping them of their dignity and safety.”

The suspect was in police custody, undergoing preparation for his “impending” court appearance, it added.

Quoting police spokesperson Michael Muchiri, NTV Kenya reported that Omwamba was arrested after arriving from Russia. He was detained for allegedly recruiting Kenyans into the Russian military, Muchiri said.

The arrest comes after Kenya’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) last week unveiled a report which said more than 1,000 Kenyans have been recruited “to fight in the Russia-Ukraine war”, with 89 currently on the front line, 39 hospitalised, and 28 missing in action.

A day after the NIS released its report, dozens of families protested in Nairobi, demanding the government take action against the network of officials and syndicates tricking locals into joining the war. Many are still awaiting news about their loved ones’ whereabouts and when they might return.

Meanwhile, other families are grieving the deaths of their sons and brothers.

The Russian embassy in Nairobi denies the allegations, calling them in a statement last week “misleading propaganda”. It added that it never issued visas to Kenyan citizens who sought to travel to Russia with the aim to fight in Ukraine. However, the embassy added that Moscow does not preclude citizens of foreign countries from voluntarily enlisting in its armed forces.

Kenya’s Foreign Minister Musalia Mudavadi said he would travel to Russia in March to engage directly with the authorities and secure a safe return of Kenyans believed to be stranded there.

Fraudulent ‘schemes’ to lure foreign fighters

Reports of African men being fraudulently recruited and wilfully duped for work abroad to end up on the front lines in Ukraine have also surfaced from South Africa, Zimbabwe and elsewhere in Africa.

Ukraine on Wednesday accused Russia of using deception to recruit more than 1,700 Africans to join its war effort as the conflict drags into a fifth year.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha made the allegation during a news conference in Kyiv with his visiting Ghanaian counterpart, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa. He accused Moscow of using fraudulent “schemes” to lure the foreign fighters.

A day earlier, South Africa’s presidency announced it had secured the return home of 11 of its nationals who were “lured” into fighting for Russia in Ukraine. The presidency had already repatriated four others.

Kyiv hopes progress in talks in Geneva will pave the way for a direct meeting between Russian and Ukrainian leaders.

Russia pounded Ukraine with a barrage of missile and drone attacks across the country overnight, wounding at least eight people, in advance of the latest high-level meeting between Kyiv and Washington aimed at ending the war, now in its fifth year.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the latest attacks on the capital in the early hours of Wednesday caused damage to a nine-storey residential building in the Darnytskyi district, and resulted in fires in a home and garages elsewhere in the city.

The strikes on the capital prompted the activation of air defence systems to counter the attack, Tymur Tkachenko, head of the city’s military administration, said, advising residents to remain in shelters until the assault was over. No casualties were reported in the capital.

Ukraine has faced regular overnight barrages as Russia targets cities with missiles and drones in harsh winter conditions in recent months, also targeting civilian energy infrastructure, even amid an ongoing push by Washington to try to negotiate an end to Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II.

Attacks also took place in the regions of Kharkiv, Zaporizhia and Dnipropetrovsk, with officials reporting seven wounded in Kharkiv and another in Kryvyi Rih in Dnipropetrovsk, the AFP news agency reported.

US, Ukrainian delegations to meet

The strikes came before a scheduled meeting in the Swiss city of Geneva between Ukraine’s lead negotiator Rustem Umerov and US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, being held in advance of a full session of talks involving Moscow, Kyiv and Washington expected in early March.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Wednesday he had spoken with US President Donald Trump before the talks, with Witkoff and Kushner part of the 30-minute call, to discuss the issues that their representatives would cover in Geneva, “as well as preparations for the next meeting of the full negotiating teams in a trilateral format at the very beginning of March”.

Zelenskyy, who has repeatedly sought face-to-face meetings with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to resolve the most challenging issues, said he expected the meeting in Geneva would “create an opportunity to move talks to the leaders’ level”.

“President Trump supports this sequence of steps,” he said. “This is the only way to resolve all the complex and sensitive issues and finally end the war.”

Putin has dismissed such a meeting repeatedly in the past, calling into question Zelenskyy’s legitimacy as Ukraine’s leader.

Meanwhile, Russian state news agency TASS reported the Kremlin’s economic affairs envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, was also due to be in Geneva on Thursday, where he would “pursue negotiations with the Americans on economic issues”.

Negotiations stalled

Despite Trump’s desire to bring an end to the conflict, one he claimed he could end in 24 hours after he retook office, the talks so far have failed to bear fruit.

Negotiations, based on a US plan unveiled late last year, have hit a roadblock over the thorniest territorial issues, such as control of the eastern Donbas, an industrial region in eastern Ukraine that has been at the heart of the fiercest fighting.

Russia is pushing for full control of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, in the Donbas, and has threatened to take it by force if Kyiv does not cave in at the negotiating table.

But Ukraine has rejected the demand and signalled it would not sign a deal without security guarantees that deter Russia from invading again. The Ukrainian constitution also forbids the ceding of territory.

Hundreds of thousands of people on both sides are believed to have been killed in Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Feb. 24 (UPI) — The United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday adopted a resolution calling for an immediate, full and unconditional cease-fire in Russia’s war in Ukraine, despite the United States’ abstention and a failed U.S. bid to strip language identifying the Kremlin’s aggression.

The 193-member body met on the fourth anniversary of Moscow’s full-scale invasion and voted 107 in favor, 12 against and 51 abstentions to adopt the “Support for lasting peace in Ukraine” resolution.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine thanked the nations for standing with Ukraine against Russia’s invasion.

“These are the right and necessary steps,” he said on social media. “And we will keep working actively to achieve peace, together with our partners.”

Among nations that abstained in the vote were China and the United States.

Washington had proposed a motion of division to vote separately on two paragraphs in the resolution, but it failed in an 11-69 vote, with 62 abstentions.

Ukraine had staunchly objected to the U.S. motion.

“Weakening or removing this language would send a very dangerous signal that these principles are negotiable,” Deputy Foreign Minister Mariana Betsa of Ukraine said, describing the motion as “deeply concerning and cannot be accepted.”

Tammy Bruce, deputy U.S. representative to the United Nations, said the war must end now, but that it “will require sacrifices and compromises” and called on “everyone to do all in their power to lower the rhetoric and engage in good faith.”

“As we’ve said, this resolution also includes language that is likely to distract from ongoing negotiations, rather than support discussion on the full range of diplomatic avenues that may pave the way to that durable peace,” she said.

“For this reason, the United States called for a vote on the two paragraphs and ultimately chose to abstain on the resolution.”

The move underscores the United States’ drift from Ukraine and its European allies under the Trump administration, which is seeking its own end to the war. It also aligns with Russia, whose deputy permanent representative, Anna Evstigneeva, told the Assembly that diplomacy is what is needed, not declarations, and that the U.N. resolution disregards Trump’s negotiations “to find a compromise.”

“Do not fall for it,” she said. “What you have before you is not an instrument of peace, it is an instrument of politicization.”

Russia began the war on Feb. 24, 2022, when it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine under the pretense of a special military operation to denazify its neighbor.

In the four years of war, Russia and its economy have been saddled with thousands of sanctions that have seen it turn to Iran, China and even North Korea for assistance, weapons and even foreign soldiers.

According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Russia has suffered an estimated 1.2 million casualties and as many as 325,000 killed.

Ukraine has suffered about 55,000 soldiers killed in the war, according to Zelensky. About 20% of its territory has been illegally occupied by Russian forces. Russia has also been accused of unlawful deportation and unlawful transfer of Ukrainian children from occupied areas of Ukraine to Russia.

Russia is also being accused of weaponizing winter in an effort to break Ukraine’s resilience by depriving millions of electricity, heating and water amid freezing temperatures, Betsa told reporters in a press conference at the U.N. General Assembly with allied nations behind her.

“We reaffirm our unwavering commitment to ensure full accountability for crimes committed under international law,” she said. “Justice for victims is not optional.”

General Assembly Vice President Tania Serafim Yvonne Romulado, delivering remarks by the assembly’s president, Annalena Baerbock, emphasized that it was a permanent member of the Security Council who “continues to inflict untold suffering on the Ukrainian people” in violation of the U.N. Charter.

Nearly four million people are internally displaced, 5.7 million live as refugees and nearly one-third of Ukraine’s population, more than half of all children, have been forced to flee.

“We cannot allow the violation of international law to become the norm, and we must safeguard the founding principles of our Charter,” she said.

“And this Assembly can lead the way.”

A number of European leaders prayed with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv, during a service to mark the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Kyiv, Ukraine – Hennady Kolesnik never expected the full-scale Russian invasion to last this long.

“These are the worst and longest years of my life,” the 71-year-old retired welder told Al Jazeera four years after the aggression that began on February 24, 2022.

In the first days of the war, he and many Ukrainians were afraid Kyiv would be lost, as well as the third of their France-sized nation that lies on the left, eastern bank of the Dnipro River.

Tens of thousands of Russian troops, including elite airborne units and motor rifle brigades, occupied north of the Kyiv region, while the Kremlin’s supporters triumphantly touted that the capital would be seized “within three days”.

Months later, “we were ecstatic about what we’d regained” after Russian forces withdrew from around Kyiv and were ousted from northern Ukraine, said Kolesnik, a grey-haired, pallid-faced and emaciated pensioner, clutching a cane.

He is recovering from a case of pneumonia that he feared he would not survive amid days-long power outages and disruptions of central heating caused by Russian drones and missiles during a cold spell, when temperatures plunged to as low as -23 degrees Celsius (-9.4 degrees Fahrenheit).

“But we’re still standing, and that’s the most important thing in a fight,” Kolesnik, who used to dabble in boxing, said with a smile.

His wife, Marina, 70, agreed: “Nobody expected us to last that long, and we’re still here.”

However, Ukraine’s 2023 counteroffensive failed to cut Moscow’s “land bridge” from western Russia to annexed Crimea, and Russian troops keep inching forward.

But their advance is glacial amid staggering losses. Last year, they occupied less than 5,000 square kilometres (1,930 sq miles), or about 0.8 percent of Ukraine’s total area, according to Ukrainian officials and Western analysts.

Overall, Russia controls about 19 percent of Ukraine’s territory.

“The front line froze like during World War I,” Nikolay Mitrokhin of Germany’s Bremen University told Al Jazeera. “So far, Russia doesn’t have enough forces or new technologies for a decisive and successful advance, but it can still squander thousands of [its soldiers’] lives.”

This month, Russian forces encountered a dual communication problem that reversed their progress.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX company shut down smuggled Starlink satellite internet terminals used by Russian soldiers, while Moscow’s efforts to block the Telegram messaging app further disrupted coordination.

Ukrainian forces counterattacked, regaining about 200 sq km (77 sq miles) in the eastern Zaporizhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions.

But in other front-line areas, the pressure is mounting.

Russian drones with attached optic fibre immune to jamming began reaching a heavily-fortified town in the southeastern Donetsk region.

“It has gotten a lot noisier. There are more outages; some locals are panicking,” Sviatoslav, a serviceman stationed in Kramatorsk, told Al Jazeera. He withheld his last name in accordance with wartime protocol.

Moscow insists Kyiv surrender Kramatorsk and the rest of Donetsk – about 1,000 sq km (386 sq miles).

What could affect Ukraine’s stance is further Russian strikes on energy infrastructure.

“Ukraine keeps the front line well, but the functionality of its energy system is hanging by a thread, which may affect a lot,” Mitrokhin said.

Eighty-eight percent of Ukrainians think Russia’s strikes are designed to “force them to capitulate”, according to a survey by the Kyiv International Sociology Institute (KMIS) conducted in late January.

Nevertheless, two-thirds of those polled said Ukraine’s armed forces should fight for “as long as it takes”.

“People en masse are more ready to keep resisting [the invasion] than to capitulate,” Svetlana Chunikhina, vice president of the Association of Political Psychologists, a Kyiv-based group, told Al Jazeera.

And even though there is a spike in depression, anxiety, and chronic stress among Ukrainians, there are no “abrupt jumps” in these conditions, she said.

“People adapt – including through depression – to the war’s horrible circumstances; people keep functioning,” she said.

Ukrainians still hope for a better future, she said.

Only one in five polled Ukrainians hopes the war will end this year, but two in three are sure that in 10 years, Ukraine will be a “thriving” member of the European Union.

“This is the literal realisation of the philosophic principle: ‘get ready for the worst, hope for the best,’” Chunikhina said.

However, brain fog and cynicism are on the rise, she said.

“For the Ukrainian public whose fight against the Russian aggression is largely fuelled by moral virtues – including high ones, such as altruism, patriotism, responsibility to future generations – cynicism could be really destructive,” she said.

News brings little relief.

United States President Donald Trump has so far failed to deliver on his pre-election pledge to end the war “in 24 hours”.

Meanwhile, Russian public figures who support the Kremlin still try to present the invasion as a step to “protect” Russian-speaking Ukrainians.

Moscow-based analyst Sergey Markov claims that the war began on February 23, 2014, when pro-Russian protesters began rallying in Crimea, urging the Kremlin to annex the Ukrainian peninsula.

“It was a peaceful uprising of the Russian people for freedom, peace and true democracy,” he wrote on Telegram on Monday.

Ukraine officials say infrastructure damaged as Russia strikes Zaporizhzhia on the war’s fourth anniversary.

European Union fails to approve further Russia sanctions and a $106bn loan to Ukraine after Hungary refuses to agree.

The European Union has imposed sanctions on a new group of eight Russian individuals suspected of serious human rights violations, as EU member state Hungary vetoed additional sanctions on Moscow and a crucial loan for Ukraine on the eve of the war’s fourth anniversary.

The European Council on Monday said the individuals were members of the judiciary responsible ⁠for sentencing prominent Russian activists on politically motivated charges, as well as heads of penal colonies where political prisoners were held in inhuman and degrading conditions.

Under the sanctions, the individuals are banned from ⁠travelling to or transiting through the EU, their ⁠assets are frozen, and EU citizens and companies are prohibited from making funds available to them.

So far, 72 individuals have been hit by similar measures, including members of the judiciary, Ministry ⁠of Justice officials, and senior figures within Russia’s prison ⁠network.

The announcement came as the bloc failed to agree on a 20th sanctions package targeting the ‌Russian authorities more broadly and ‌a $106bn loan for Ukraine.

Hungary, the friendliest EU state to the Kremlin, vetoed the measures – which required unanimous approval within the EU bloc – following claims that Kyiv is delaying restarting the flow of Russian oil via a Soviet-era pipeline.

Kyiv says the Druzhba pipeline, which still carries Russian oil over Ukrainian territory to Europe, was damaged a month ago by a Russian drone strike, and it is fixing it as fast as it can.

Hungary and Slovakia, which have the EU’s only ⁠two refineries that still rely on oil via Druzhba, blame Ukraine for the delay.

Tensions were further exacerbated on Monday as Ukrainian security officials claimed to have launched a drone attack that sparked a fire at a Russian pumping station serving the Druzhba oil ⁠pipeline.

‘Message we didn’t want to send’

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told reporters ahead of the EU meeting that Budapest would block the loan as Kyiv had taken the “political decision” to “endanger our energy security”.

“The Druzhba pipeline has not been hit by any Russian attack, the pipeline itself has not been harmed, and currently there is no physical reason and no physical obstacle to reinstall the deliveries,” he said.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas called the failure to approve the new package a “setback and message we didn’t want to send today, but the work continues”.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said in a post on X that Hungary and Slovakia should not be allowed to “hold the entire EU hostage” and called on them to “engage in constructive cooperation and responsible behaviour”.

Maximilian Hess, an analyst at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, said the loan was “crucial for keeping Kyiv able to finance itself going forward in this conflict”.

Hess argued Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is using the issue to his political advantage ahead of elections on April 12.

“Orban is trying to make this a political issue, and he’s trying to blame his own economic difficulties on Ukraine [to boost] his chances in this election,” the analyst told Al Jazeera.

Independent polls suggest the right-wing nationalist leader is facing the most serious challenge yet in his 16 years as prime minister.